dead hearts are everywhere
by TalkingToTulips
Summary: Every time Jefferson begins to go numb, Cora stabs him in the heart to make him bleed once more / Allusions to Alice/Jefferson, no actual interaction, just a little head canon of mine


Fandom: Once Upon A Time  
Pairings: Alice/Jefferson (Mad Hatter)  
Characters mentioned: Grace, Alice, The March Hare  
Characters included: Cora, Jefferson  
Rating: T  
Word Count: 900  
Time Frame: After Jefferson is captured by the Queen of Hearts  
Summary: Every time Jefferson begins to go numb, Cora stabs him in the heart to make him bleed once more

* * *

After a while, the days merge together and Jefferson can no longer see anything further than the table in front of them where his hands, which covered in hastily made bandages where he stuck his skin with pins or sliced them with scissors. He no longer felt the pain; it was merely a time wasting entity, cutting open your skin with the scissors by accident, no longer a source of pain. He'd heard that ability to feel was a sign of madness but he didn't care anymore.

It had been a few months since his arrival in Wonderland; since they'd screwed his head back on and sent him off to work. His hands moved automatically as they worked on the next addition to his vastly growing hat collection. His ears twitched keenly when the door to his work room opened. Strange, it was neither 7am nor twelve noon or 5 sharp and he was receiving a visitor. Those were the only time anyone came to his part of the castle, his mad little world, and they were only there to bring him a meagre meal and be on their way.

The Queen of Hearts picked up a pink hat he'd made weeks before and held it up, the hatter watching this from the corner of his eye as he worked. She would never wear such a thing when she had a crown to grace her head so she bashed the dust from the fabric once then replaced it back on the shelf. He didn't say anything, just turned the wheel of the sewing machine and focused on the motion as it stitched the hat together like magic.

"You really should get some fresh air; the smell of felt does things to the mind." She told him, walking around the piles of unwanted hats to observe him, like he were a museum piece…or a dying baby deer and she was waiting to pounce. He ignored her. She pondered for a few seconds before continuing with what she'd come here to say. "You think that I don't recognise you."

The machine stopped without Jefferson noticing. He froze for a few seconds then continued with his work, eyes down on his work.

Cora went on. "You're the one who snuck that meddlesome Alice out from the palace, right from under my nose. You and that March Hare girl." Jefferson wanted to smile at the memory but his face was numb. Marcheline had been his best friend for years before Alice came to Wonderland, but everyone knew her by The March Hare since before they could remember. Nobody really remembered why either. Cora picked up another hat, this time black like her heart, and held it over her head like she was about to try it on, looking in the full length mirror set up a few feet from Jefferson's work table. "We found her in a crop of mushrooms ten months later…dying."

On the last word, Jefferson stopped dead once more and he tugged the fabric from underneath the sewing machine and heard the fabric scream as it ripped. Cora was looking away so didn't notice his mistake, causing the hatter to quickly cover his tracks and begin working once more. "She wouldn't say where you went, and why she wasn't with you. And we did try to torture it out from her pretty, dry lips. Oh, how she screamed, woke up half the castle." Jefferson tightened at the image of Alice, his Alice being tortured for information.

"But once you said that your hat could only take two people back if two people had come through, it all made perfect sense." She explained, turning around with a triumphant smirk. "The child you took through the looking glass was hers, and that's why you're so desperate to get back to her? Because you failed her mother?" Cora didn't need to ask, she knew it was true. Jefferson placed his palms into the wood of the table and tried not to move, suppressing his anger and pain. He hadn't felt anything this vivid in weeks; the white hot rage was thawing his heart out in the worst possible way.

"Well, history always repeats itself. And if yours is anything to go by, you'll always leave the one you love to rot, Hatter. Maybe she's better without you." Cora told him, like she could read his mind and tell his future. Jefferson finally looked her up with a venomous hatred in his eyes. "Your wife certainly wasn't. She screamed and cried for you all night sometimes. She was sure that you were coming back for her, but you didn't, you never even tried. You left her to be captured and let her die in a cell of the cold and scars and the-"

"Shut up. You don't know the half of it." Jefferson didn't yell, he rarely did. He spoke with such fierce anger that Cora did as told as he gripped the wood to keep himself from strangling the Queen. She smirked cruelly and replaced the hat on top of his table.

She had what she needed from him today, his tortured soul.

"I know enough. Good day, Hatter." That was all Cora said before she walked out the room with her regal snobbery. Jefferson stayed quiet until her footsteps faded away before he shoved the sewing machine off the table and let it crash onto the floor into a pile of springs and cogs. He stepped away from the table and ran a hand over his face, looking down at the mess. Looks like he'd have to sew by hand from now on. More time wasted.


End file.
